Communication service providers, from cable to cellular to satellite providers, are ever mindful of the performance and availability of their networks. One key aspect for ensuring high performance and high availability concerns how traffic is engineered. This challenge is even greater when the network carries a diverse range of traffic type, from low data rate non-real-time traffic to high data rate real-time traffic. Additionally, subscribers require flexibility in terms of their commitment, or lack thereof, to a predetermined amount of capacity ahead of time. Such demand has resulted in the development of on-demand bandwidth allocation techniques, whereby a station or terminal can request capacity dynamically as their load requirements change. Traditionally, these bandwidth allocation techniques are closed loop, such that a feedback mechanism is established between a granting terminal and the requesting terminals to determine the amount of desired capacity. One drawback with this approach is that network capacity is consumed as overhead, largely because of this feedback or closed loop.
Based on the foregoing, there is a clear need for improved approaches for allocating bandwidth, while minimizing overhead.